Worst Heroine in Anime

I’ve read a dozen chapters of Rurouni Kenshin many years ago and I finally decided to pore through the entire manga properly this week. I was then introduced to a particular character in the story, who has single-handedly encouraged me to nearly pick up a pencil and shove it at her eye through my laptop screen.

To put it briefly: Rurouni Kenshin is an anime/manga that adopts the same name of its main character who roams feudal Japan as a former assassin. He encounters a woefully idiotic girl by the name of Kaoru and she purports to be the owner of a dojo titled after her family.

But girl, you are shitting us. Throughout the entire plot so far, she’s proven herself as THE weakest character in terms of physical strength and her lock of an emotional buffer. There’s a dialogue within the manga that reveals her aggravatingly fragile, damsel-in-distress persona. (Btw, this won’t be a spoiler for those who are still reading the manga):

*After everyone has told Kaoru to GTFO since she was targeted as the next victim… not  like it’s a surprise. I’d have called an attack already…*

Kaoru: “Kenshin!”
*Megumi’s holding her back*
Megumi: “This is no time to mess around!”
Kaoru: “But Kenshin’s -!!” *She’s bawling at this point as usual*
*Megumi bitch-slaps her. WOO*
Megumi: “Pull yourself together! You said it yourself! If you died, Kenshin would blame himself and suffer, so you’re not going to die! Now it’s time to come through on that!”

Analysis

One: Kaoru shames the living shit out of her dojo. Two: She’s ALWAYS on the sidelines and imploring Kenshin to take care of himself. Fool, he’s fighting for your weak ass since you can’t even duel for the life of you (so much for being a Kenjutsu instructor). Three: in this same scene, her own student – a mere boy of ten years – is tackling adults twice his age and she ever so bravely cries herself a river. I don’t know what Kenshin sees in this turd.

I hope it’s become evident that I despise Kaoru for doing an injustice to all female heroes. I fervently wish that Disney does a cross-over with Rurouni Kenshin and releases a video with Mulan whooping Kaoru’s ass.

Unfortunately, there are other terrible ones that exist in the world of manga – Sakura from the hit show, Naruto, is a fine, fine example of what it means to be a liability. Augh, I’m not gonna even get into that. Despite that her existence was incredibly obsolete in the first season, she’s now at least strong enough to fend for herself against a few enemies alone.

Perhaps the only heroine that I acknowledge is Olivier Armstrong. She holds the complete respect of man, woman and dog alike while overseeing arguably the country’s strongest army positioned at the most dangerous location.  She doesn’t follow the Lara Bancroft hype where the latter dons on cleavage-raging spandex  to have pervy boys hone in on her jugs like bees to a hive. Instead, she genuinely scares them shitless with her no-bluff policy, sword-wielding proficiency and ghastly look of anger in a battle. See, Kaoru, if you want balls, Olivier’s someone you better take notes from.